KVI interview: U.S political discourse is akin to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

By KVI staff
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Political writer Andrew Klavan talks to KVI's Kirby Wilbur about his latest essay on the current state of political acrimony in America and how it relates to the book (and movie) "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". (photo credit: Rex Features).&nbsp;

Author/podcaster/reporter Andrew Klavan delivers this superb essay about the Trump era and the current American political atmosphere. It boils down to the politically correct character assassination between Democrats and Republicans.

It usually results in a blanket declaration that a conservative is a racist. Its become de rigueur with the election of President Donald Trump.

Klavan tells KVI's Kirby Wilbur, "(what) I don't think conservatives are enough aware of, is the success the left has had in demonizing simple factual statements as racist or sexist or Islamophobic or anything. I mean if you say a simple truth like 'women and men are different', if you say a simple truth like, ya know, 'blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crime' or 'Muslims commit a disproportionate amount of terrorism', those are just data points. Those are true. Those are facts. And yet the Left has managed to make it seem you're being rude or cruel just for saying those things. And they've kind of wrapped us in this--they call it political correctness--but its really a form of mental slavery where you have to check every word you say make sure you're not going to be condemned or fired or ostracized or ganged-up on simply for stating the facts as they are. "

Klavan points out the the current state of American political discourse has been transformed for several years, saying, "And it really is an amazing, amazing culture that the Left has worked very, very hard to create in which it is virtue to vote Democrat and evil to vote Republican. And that's what we're dealing with because that has nothing to do with the facts. "

Klavan says Republicans and Democrats involved in politics take two completely divergent approaches to winning over political opponents, "This is what I mean about conservatives not being really understanding (of) the power of culture and the Left does understand it. I mean we think that, ya know, Paul Ryan stands up and he points at a chart with a stick and he thinks the facts are going to carry the day. But the Left understands that the standards of society and the social norms are really what govern how people behave and what they think is right and wrong."

Klavan writes in the column linked above, "Enter President Donald Trump. He is a rude and crude person. He speaks like a Queens real estate guy on a construction site. And because he does not have good manners, he thoughtlessly breaks the rules with which the Left has sought to muzzle those who disagree with them. In this regard, I frequently compare Trump to Randle Patrick McMurphy, the loudmouthed, ill-mannered roustabout from Ken Kesey’s brilliant novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy comes into an insane asylum controlled by a pleasant, smiling nightmare of a head nurse named Ratched. Nurse Ratched, while pretending to be the soul of motherly care, is actually a castrating, silencing tyrant. Her rules of good manners, supposedly fashioned for the benefit of all, are really a system of mental slavery."